


Men of Steel, Men of Power

by Noscere



Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe, F/M, Hug your local secretary or planner, Human Experimentation, They do more work than you think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2018-12-31 02:59:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12123054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: It takes more than soldiers to win a war.





	1. Dreamed a Thousand Dreams

“This is Central. Security status RED. Repeat, security status RED,” Bradford says into his mike. The XCOM base around him shakes as if the earth’s gaping maw will soon consume it. Which is crazy, earthquakes rarely shake Kansas, it’s tornadoes that people fear.

At the back of his head, something whispers, _Haven’t I done this before? Where’s the fire extinguisher–_

THWAP. The fire extinguisher hits the side of his head.

Bradford jolts. The blue light of the Hologlobe dissipates. The world is tinged red instead, by some sort of glass, and symbols that are clearly not human play over his vision. He’s encased in a definitely-not-XCOM-regulation environmental suit. He looks down at the lime green fluid draining below his feet. Dr. Vahlen’s method of gene therapy involved stripping a soldier to their skivvies before dunking them in orange-gold Meld, but this fluid does remind him of the tanks in the Gene Therapy Labs.

The Commander stands before him: holding an assault rifle big enough to club a Muton in his hands, 5 o’clock shadow over hunger-carved cheeks, and about ten to fifteen years older.

“Let’s cut the knot,” Commander Mertens says.

Glass shatters.

Bradford falls forward, but the Commander catches him.

The world is washed out in blue once again, asthe Hologlobe blurs into life before him. There’s a persistent pounding in the back of his head. Mertens is at Bradford’s side, barking out orders: he needs the Skyranger in Berlin, pronto, and troops need to deploy for pacification in Sydney, and won’t somebody _send more soldiers to Berlin? The base is being attacked! The asset is out of containment!_

 

* * *

 

Bradford blinks in and out between worlds. He catches glimpses of white tools and dark faces hidden behind white hoods and black lenses.

 _“Get a move on!”_ someone yells, cutting through the fog. _“We’ve got ADVENT bearing down on us!”_

 _“Wish we had more time,”_ says a voice that resembles Dr. Shen, but is far too feminine to be the doctor.

 _“I don’t disagree,”_ says a deeper, more authoritative voice. _“But as it stands, we risk losing the patient and our team if we don’t begin the removal procedure immediately.”_

Bradford blinks, and for a second, sees the soulless grin of a Thin Man.

Hands tip Bradford’s chin up. There’s a bright, burning pain that sears his neurons and bleaches his vision white.

He sees a world on fire, President Lykketoft of the UN General Assembly shaking hands with a Thin Man, lines of men and women walking into a great stone building, and an Ethereal, holding its four arms out towards him.

“ _…vitals stabilizing_ ,” Bradford hears as he ascends from the fog once again. “ _Pupillary response normal_ ,” the glasses-wearing one says. “ _Procedure complete_. _How’s the ADVENT situation, Commander?_ ”

“Pushed them back, but we need immediate evac,” his superior says, appearing in Bradford’s field of vision. “Get Central on the crash cart.”

The Central Officer opens his mouth to speak, and immediately regrets the sharp spike of pain that lances through his head. It gets worse as Lily – that must be Dr. Shen’s daughter, then – and the Commander lift him up and place his sorry body onto the hardest slab of rock he’s ever had the displeasure of sleeping on.

“Hell of a way to hit the ground,” the Commander says. Wheels squeak and moan along canvas, then there’s a small bump, and dirt and dead leaves muffle the wheels. “Welcome back, Central.”

 

* * *

 

He wakes up with the worst non-hangover headache he’s ever had. On the plus side, the bed on which he lies is definitely more comfortable than the crash cart.

A lamp casts its soft golden glow over the canvas tent. The Commander sits by his side, legs crossed as he reads something on a tablet, half his face thrown into shadow by the lamp. Bradford isn’t sure where the Commander got that green sleeved shirt with what appears to be checkerboard patterns over the front, but he knows one thing: it was designed by someone with terrible taste. Possibly the same person who designed the USMC’s woolly pully. At least the Marines picked a better designer for the dress blues. The pistol in the Commander’s shoulder holster isn’t regulation either, nor is the leather weapon harness. Bradford should wear a weapon harness. It would’ve made defending the base easier.

What was he thinking about?

Right. Waking up as Rip van Winkle. He’ll start with that.

“Morning, sir,” he tries to say. His long-unused voice makes it sound like “ _mooooorrnnsiiiiiirrr_.”

Commander Mertens fumbles for something under the bed. “Sorry about that. Guess I shouldn’t’ve joked about making you the Commander so often.” Mertens offers him a hamster water bottle. “It’s this or ice, and we don’t have ice.”

Bradford rolls his eyes, but welcomes the drink, even if it has to be dripped into his mouth.

“Any explanation why you’re ten years older?” Bradford asks, settling back on the pillows. His teeth scrape over his tongue, but he feels no pain, only a soft, golden sensation floating through his body. “Wow. These are good drugs. No motrin, that’s for sure.”

“Eleven, actually. Don’t get used to them. Vahlen won’t be making anymore.” The Commander’s face briefly falls into tight lines of misery, but he regains his professional façade. “You want it straight, or sugar coated?”

“I’m a big boy, Commander.” Bradford groans and shields his face from the lamplight. “I think I can handle it.”

“The aliens stormed XCOM HQ. Most of us who were still breathing got out, but they captured you.” Mertens leans against the cot. The light shifts over the Commander’s face, revealing a sunken lid where a left eye used to be.

“Holy sh– you’re missing an eye!” Bradford tries to sit up, but the Commander pushes him back onto the pillows.

“Easy. The aliens shoved a chip–“

“Have it out, Commander,” Bradford demands. “I am this close to losing control of the situation. If I know Vahlen, she won’t be happy about that.”

“Nor will Dr. Shen or his kid. Or Tygan. You should thank him, by the way, he took that chip out of your skull,” the Commander said, holding up his tablet.

“Sir…”

“Injured on the op to get you back.” The Commander looks around. “Ah, guess the eye-patch fell off. Fentanyl’s a hell of a thing." He picks up a scrap of black fabric and ties it off around his head. "Anyways. Some Council guy sold XCOM out. He's in ADVENT upper echelons now. Aliens set up the ADVENT administration to take control of humanity. We got wind of another work camp, and rumor had it you were a prisoner.”

Bradford slumps against his musty pillows.  

“So the aliens took over. We lost.”

“We’re still fighting,” Mertens declares. The old fire fills that downtrodden man’s eye, but it is quickly extinguished. “The aliens set up megacities to draw humanity in. They do god knows what in these gene clinics. We know at least ten million have gone missing in them. But there’s still people who believe we deserve better than some space-age tyrant.” Mertens looks away. “Hasn’t been a good decade. What’s left of XCOM has been on the run. We scrounge for what we can, hit ADVENT whenever we can.”

“We’re short on supplies. That’s where I come in?” Bradford guesses, looking at the tent. Multicolor swatches of fabric are patched into the sides. XCOM was short on cash during the invasion, but at least they could field their men in proper uniforms.

“I need you to work your genius,” Mertens says. “I can man ops, hit ADVENT where it hurts, but that doesn’t mean anything if our soldiers aren’t fed. I…” Mertens slumps. “There’s so much _work,_ Bradford. It doesn’t matter that we have laser weapons when we can’t even charge them. It’s been a logistical nightmare fighting ADVENT. Every convoy is always heavily guarded and arrives on time. They’ve sent all the soldiers to work camps, so we’re short on recruits. Hell, we’re short on informants because ADVENT gets everyone to check in on a schedule. ADVENT is a goddamn efficient murder machine, and it’s…”

The Commander wipes his eyes with his right hand. One very mechanical hand that resembles the Base Augments from a MEC.

“Jesus Christ, sir, you can’t keep springing these things on me!” Bradford sighs. “At least Shen made it out. I’m surprised Vahlen isn’t prodding me. No offense to you. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“Shen’s working on securing a ship. We’re grounded for now,” the Commander says. “Once the UFO’s ours, XCOM will go global. We got the Skyranger running about… five months ago, I think.” Mertens looks away. Something old and repressed burns in the man’s dark green eyes. “After we got the Skyranger running. ADVENT came calling. Vahlen was… well, you know her.”

It all clicks into place. Vahlen would never delegate a subordinate scientist to mess around with bodies.

Cold grief sinks to the pit of Bradford’s stomach.

“She’s dead,” Bradford says.

“I tried to drag her away–” the Commander’s voice breaks. He stops. Mertens scratches his head with his mechanical arm. Bradford hears the frustration and the tears rising up in his voice, and under it all, burning hatred that is aimed squarely at Bradford.

“She said she was so close to finding you,” Mertens mutters. “Then the football team broke in. But Vahlen did it. We got you back.”

Silence sits between them.

“The tablet there’s biometrically locked to you,” the Commander says, gesturing to Bradford’s left. Where hatred once burned, only ashy fatigue lies in Mertens’ eyes. “Choose a finger you like and don’t intend to lose, because the tablet will only recognize your fingerprint. When you’re feeling up to it, have a look. I’ve got to help Dr. Shen dig out the UFO.”

“You have a name for it?” Bradford asks, to break the silence. Mertens doesn't seem to want to leave, but the man's fidgeting says he doesn't want to stay either.

“Lil Shen wants to call it the Avenger. Something about agents of shield. It’s some nerd thing.” Mertens shakes his head. “Don’t tell her I called her that.”

“Lil Shen? You mean, Lily?”

“Raymond’s daughter, yes. Engineering prodigy. Wouldn’t have the Skyranger without her.” Mertens winces. “Also gets pissy when you shorten her name.”

“I’m _taller than my dad_ , Commander,” the female Shen calls from outside the tent. “I’m also not fifteen anymore!”

“That’s my cue,” Mertens says. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get a new eye out of the deal.” He salutes Bradford. “Hope I didn’t drop you too far in the deep, Central. It’s good to have you back.”

Bradford was a military intelligence officer, but it doesn’t take training to hear the lie in the Commander’s words.

“I’ll get to work as soon as I can,” Bradford says, but the Commander has already left.

Bradford lies back on his cot. The tent flap flutters in Mertens’ wake. Crickets chirp incessantly, which does not help the headache building up behind his eyes. He scans the room: a bucket sits by his cot, to the left of his head. Convenient, if he needs to throw up. Throwing up sounds good about now.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” he murmurs into the emptiness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, an explicitly male Commander for once. Next thing you know, m/m Commander/Central will be showing up in my work list. This fic won't be updated as much, as it's something I have floating in bits and pieces in my head… as opposed to my other fics, which are in bits and pieces on Word docs.
> 
> Woolly pull: http://terminallance.com/2012/12/18/terminal-lance-241-the-wooly-pully/
> 
> Titles from "Land of Confusion", by Genesis.


	2. Haunted By A Million Screams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> XCOM: it's not just recycling if it goes back into you! It's reusing! Help your Earth today by contributing to sustainable use of human resources.

The pillow is soft beneath his heavy head, but something pulls Bradford from the comfort of sleep. He rubs his eyes. He doesn’t recognize the shoddy, patchwork tent, and he doesn’t know why he’s in a plastic surgical gown. Is he back in Afghanistan, of all places? No, it can’t be, the tent is too cold, and there’s not enough shout–

“SWEAR TO GOD, ODINSON,” the Commander bellows, “CUT THAT SHIT OUT OR I WILL CLUB YOU TO DEATH WITH THAT LEG.”

Sergeant Odinson – at least, if that’s really the plucky Assault from the old XCOM base – giggles and shouts back, “You know you love me, sir! You’re ‘armless!”

Bradford blinks. What happened to the professional Commander he knew?

…ah. That’s right. The world went to hell, and Bradford was driving the train.

XCOM’s former Central Officer takes a deep breath. He centers himself. There are a few variables he knows: he is in friendly territory, the aliens won, and there’s a tablet dedicated to him.

He looks around the tent. What has changed? There’s a bright yellow HAZMAT suit folded up on the foot of the bed. The plastic faceplate is scratched almost to the point of translucency. The tablet is now under his pillow. Bradford can start with that first. He had orders to make sense of this strange world where XCOM failed and everyone is broken inside.

Bradford chooses his right index. The screen glows a soft blue as it takes in his vitals, DNA – that’s Vahlen’s touch, Bradford suspects – and finally, the general curls and whorls of his fingerprint.

 _‘Welcome back, John Bradford_ ,’ flashes across the screen.

The Central Officer tries to sit up, but the headache swirling around his temples stops him short. He settles for lying down in bed and propping the tablet on his chest. With every memo and list he reads, the headache grows and grows until it smashes a devilish beat against his skull.

The tent flap whispers as the tie is undone. A young woman ducks in. Bradford can see her father in the clever spark that ignites her eyes. Her arms are bare, and so there is nothing to hide the burn scar that eats up her left arm.

“So you’re Central Officer Bradford,” Lily says, bearing a tray before her. There’s a cup worth of steaming hot grey mush in the dented metal bowl. “Dad says you’re an organizational mastermind.”

“Thanks. Did my best.” Bradford groans as he maneuvers himself into a sitting position. His limbs shake beneath him, weak from years of disuse. “There a washroom anywhere?”

“I’ll get the washbasin for you after you eat.” Lily sets the tray over his lap. “You’re on the sick list, so you get hot water.”

Bradford gingerly runs his tongue over the brand new scar on his soft palate. “Lucky me,” he mutters. “

“Oh yeah, wear the HAZMAT suit outside,” Lily says, as if she’s discussing the weather. “ADVENT sometimes drops viruses on us. The Commander’s gonna be pissed if you die of the flu. And don’t forget the plated armor. We sometimes have stray bullets flying around, even at the Command tent.”

 

Once dressed and armored within the HAZMAT suit, Bradford sets out to find the rest of XCOM’s Command team. He passes by young teens, their faces gaunt from starvation. 

Bradford stares. There is a googly eye attached to the Commander’s eyepatch.

“It was scaring the kids,” Mertens says gruffly. He shakes his head. The black circle jumps inside its plastic cage. “Not going on field ops now that you’re back, so I’m on low priority for medical augments.”

“Generally, you see the field better with two eyes,” Bradford says dryly. “Does it hamper your ability to supervise a mission?”

“It’s a pain in the ass not having binocular vision, but I’ll cope. Not like there’s supplies to build the damn eye in the first place,” the Commander says. Mertens sits down on the fallen log next to the Command tents. “I forgot how much energy kids have. At least, when they’re not starving to death.”

“How many kids are there?”

Mertens lets out a sigh. “Jesus, I don’t remember. Lily, did another one pass away recently?”

“Yeah, it was Odinson’s daughter,” Lily says quietly, as they filter into the tent. “A month ago, and his wife killed herself soon after. That’s probably why he’s acting up.”

“Figures.” Mertens counts them off on his fingers. “Fifteen then. Most of them are older than ten. The… the younger kids don’t make it out here.”

Dr. Shen rests a hand on the Commander’s shoulder. Mertens nods his thanks, then turns on a projector. A map springs into life: barracks, by the looks of the squat profile, with six main arterial roads leading up to it. The supply depot is set in the mountains, with few ways to access it but air. XCOM has drawn bright lines of blue across the map, painting out a plan to storm the depot.

“What can you tell me?” Mertens asks.

Bradford draws on his memories.

“I wouldn’t hit this site here,” Bradford encircles the zone, “it’s too heavily guarded, and the roads leading up to it suggest supplies come in, but don’t come out. My guess is a R&D department.”

“There go our plans.” Lily takes note. “I’ll have Firebrand wake up, if we don’t need the armored Skyranger.”

“Get it done,” the Commander says. “Are there any sites we can hit that might have supplies?”

Bradford drags the map over, and taps a complex about 60 miles away. “This one. Heavy traffic in and out, shape of the buildings suggest a warehouse, good mix between automated and personnel defenses. That there is a supply truck.” Bradford doesn’t know why he knows that fact with such certainty. “It’s built to carry 4 tons of food and armor. More heavily armored than the weapons trucks, but outfitted with fewer antipersonnel defenses. Expect all boxes to be armed with automatic detonators. They will go off if they stop transmitting to the main tower. I suggest we build a fake signal generator, and test it at a distance.”

He looks up from his tablet, to find the Command team staring at him. 

Dr. Shen smiles. “I told you,” he says, nudging his daughter, “Central is the man for the job.”

“Yeah, yeah, dad, I can be wrong sometimes,” Lily grumbles. “We have a jammer, Central, but if you can find me the frequencies, I can rework it to broadcast the correct signal.”

“I presume that is what the chip was for,” Tygan says, as he enters the room. “Bradford, please report in for a checkup after this meeting.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Bradford automatically replies, before outlining the rest of what he knows.

“Do we need a distraction?” Mertens asks.

Bradford thinks about it.

“No,” he says finally. “At least, not a ground force distraction. Explosions will draw in armed interceptors. Our best bet is a smash and grab.”

“Are you sure about this?” the Commander presses. “I’m sending out five men to possibly die on your information.”

Bradford has faint memories of sorting through supply lines for the Commander. Nausea sinks its sick tendrils into his stomach. He has a feeling it wasn’t _XCOM’s_ supply lines he was organizing.

“Yes.” He pauses. “Though, if you can throw down an EMP, you might buy yourselves more time. You won’t lose crates; they’re hooked up to a psionic signal.” 

He doesn’t like the fact that this information rolls off his tongue.

Lily puts her hands over her GREMLIN. “Shhh. Don’t say the bad E-word.”

“EMP?” Central asks.

The Commander rolls his eyes – _eye,_ even though the googly eye dances around like a plastic pupil – and holds up his robotic right arm. “EMP grenades are the most annoying things invented, and I will fist the ADVENT Officer who decided to arm all troopers with EMP grenades with a MECT arm.” 

“Um, I think you’re scaring him,” Lily murmurs to Mertens. “Remember, we’re not supposed to shock him too much.”

“I agree with Lily,” Tygan says. “Behave more like you did in 2015.”

“How bad is it?” Bradford rifles through his notes. “I see records of Troopers using EMP grenades in the AARs, but no mention of frequency per mission.”

“Central, do you recall how Dr. Vahlen once scolded the Commander for use of explosives in the field?” Dr. Shen asks, then pauses. He sends a sorrowful look to Mertens.

Mertens waves it away.

Bradford grimaces. “Ah… yes, that would get irritating fast.”

“Let’s move.” Mertens hits a button. In seconds, two children – not much older than eleven, clad in bright yellow hazmat suits – come running into the tent. “Hey guys. I need you to get the team, okay? There’s been a change of plan.”

 

 

Bradford vacillates between nausea and the urge to scream as the Skyranger heads towards its destination. It’s a lighter bird, one he doesn’t recognize, built solely for speed. At max, it can carry six soldiers, whereas the old Skyranger could carry twelve if it had to.

“I’ve never seen them so… disorganized,” Petrova says. Her metal leg clunks against the Skyranger floor. “Commander, you seeing this shit?”

“I can’t believe it,” Mertens mutters. “They’re stuck at the gates. The gates!”

Bradford looks at the ADVENT officers arguing with the soldiers at the gate leading to the complex. ADVENT troopers sit in the grass, their weapons slung over their chests. Some of the drivers have left the cars, and sun themselves on the hoods of their trucks. Judging by the mountain of discarded wrappers lying around them, they have been there for quite a while.

“That… looks like a typical army supply chain.” 

“You don’t understand.” Mertens’ voice shakes with excitement. “A typical truck spends five minutes, no more, passing through the gates. We’ll drop the distraction there.”

“We passed the gates,” Firebrand reports. “Deploying explosives in ten.”

“ _Work makes free_ ,” Mertens says mockingly, as the iron-wrought gates zoom past the Skyranger’s cameras. "Catchy, ADVENT."

Bradford raises an eyebrow at Dr. Shen, who sighs.

“ADVENT has made a point of sending all combat-trained personnel to work camps,” Shen says. “Sometimes, they do not return as humans.”

Warning bells go off in Bradford's head, but he saves his questions for later.

“And dropping in five… four… three… two… one!” Bradford watches the explosive packages slide out the Skyranger bay. Hidden in their midst are miniaturized Chryssalids – stolen from somewhere Shen calls the _Avenger_ – who will spring out and provide an excellent distraction, but are also apparently prone to attacking XCOM soldiers in the vicinity. “Heading back round to point Alpha!”

“Happy birthday, ADVENT!” Kelly cheers.

“It’s your favorite!” Drapeau adds. Akhmedov snickers into his scarf.

“Menace team, prepare to drop,” the Commander says. All hilarity in the Skyranger dies, as the team strap their weapons onto their backs and stand up.

“Five-by-five, we’re ready to drop!” Firebrand pulls up above a squat building with a flat ceiling. Akhmedov shoves a crate of explosives out the Skyranger bay. “Everybody hold on!”

The explosives detonate in the air, blowing a neat hole in the center of the building.

“Go!” the Commander orders. The team leaps out of the Skyranger, grapping the ropes to slow their descent. They land in a warehouse, surrounded by crates.

 

“Disarmers, disarmers,” Petrova mumbles, passing one to Kelly as she places hers over the crate’s top. Akhmedov bunkers down under Drapeau’s watchful eye and sets up a jammer. The video quality in the Command tent flickers, but Bradford can see that this team is a well-oiled machine when it comes to smash-and-grabs.

Kelly slaps the disarmer onto the crate. “Up you go!” she says, and tugs the straps into place around the box. Firebrand lowers the grappling hook to grab the supplies. According to Lily, the automatic winching will shift the crates into place and even stack them. XCOM could steal enough to feed an army today.

Bradford looks at the Skyranger’s heat scanners. “Commander, we need to move in thirty. There’s an army getting ready to storm the depot! Looks like they’re fully occupied with the Chryssalids.”

“Good,” Firebrand murmurs, “they can deal with those nasty fucks for once.”

“Drapeau, switch to securing the crates!” the Commander orders. Drapeau hooks his gun onto his back and helps Akhmedov load three more crates into the Skyranger.

"They might bring out the armed interceptors earlier," Bradford warns. 

Bradford shakes his head. An angry wave of red is approaching. ADVENT must have finished dealing with the Chryssalids. Firebrand has escaped most of their notice, because she’s hovering low inside the warehouse and the jammer is disrupting any ADVENT cameras or drones that come into the vicinity, but when she takes off, she’ll have rockets on her tail.

“Commander, we have to leave,” he says. “There’ll be anti-air in ten more minutes.”

“Everyone out now! Drapeau, grab the jammer!”

As quickly as they came, XCOM ascends into the Skyranger. Firebrand barely waits for the team to strap themselves in before she guns the engine.

“What do you think is in there?” Drapeau leans forward and jitters in his seat. “Kelly, did you read the sides?”

“I’m pretty sure it was food,” she smirks.

Akhmedov’s jaw drops. “Pretty sure?!”

“Hey, have you looked at the godawful font ADVENT uses? But I saw some MREs for sure.”

Cheers erupt in the Skyranger bay, though they are a bit hard to hear when everyone is crammed in against the walls and the crates.

“They act like it’s Christmas,” Bradford remarks, as the videofeed cuts out.

"Damn it, we must've run out of battery," Lily sighs. "I'll go scavenge up another power core."

“In the apocalypse? Food is hope.” Mertens looks around. “Central, when the Skyranger arrives, I want you to get to the Command tents and arm yourself. When the supply drops arrive… things get violent here.”

 

Bradford quickly learns how violent when riots break out at dinnertime. A human crush surrounds the group of tents that make up the mess hall. Hollow eyes, carved cheeks, collarbones standing out in stark relief: these are all the marks of starvation. XCOM soldiers – he only knows they are soldiers because their armor is higher quality, otherwise he’d call them armed thugs – beat back the crowd into orderly lines.

Beside him, the Commander and Lily watch dispassionately. Dr. Shen is off on the ship he calls the _Avenger_ , probably recycling the crates into armor the troops can use. Tygan is tending to the wounded from when ADVENT last attacked. Bradford wonders if their presence would change anything.

“Back!” Jepson shouts, snapping his baton back and forth. “Red schedule, form a line! Yellow schedule, stay back!”

One man breaks formation and heads to the front. There’s a bright green bracelet ringing his wrist. Beighlie winds up her gun and clubs the young man in the face. He goes down to the ground, howling. The crowd parts around him, no compassion or mercy in their faces. A young boy steps over his body.

“We’ve had too many winters where someone starved to death, and he _still_ does that?” Lily asks, looking at the man with equal distaste. ROV-R beeps. The sound is somehow very menacing. “He’s lucky you’re back, Central. That’s his third offense. He’s getting very close to getting shot for this.”

Bradford swallows. This is not the XCOM he remembers.

Mertens eyes him. The discomfort must be clear on his face, because the Commander begins to explain, “Not enough food to go around. Reds are people who eat every day, communism jokes aside.”

Lily punches his shoulder. “That got old about three years ago.”

“Sorry, Lil- Lily. Priority personnel, the injured, the kids, and the old. Dr. Shen’s in there. Yellows eat every two days. That’s most of the healthy adults, Lily and Tygan included. If they go on missions, they get supplemental rations. Greens eat every three days, but they get a little more if we have the supplies.”

“All right, do we have enough supplies…” Bradford mutters, pulling out his tablet to look down his requisition list. “Commander? You’re on the green list?”

“Why do you think I’m crabby right now?” the Commander says with a skeleton’s grin. “Just for now. We had you on the red list while you recovered. We’ll move back to yellow once you’re healed up.”

Bradford gestures at the literal mountain of supplies hauled back from the warehouse. “Commander. There is enough food to feed us all for a month, even if we eat three times a day. I suggest we start moving everyone to daily meals, altered to accommodate past starvation. It will also improve morale.”

The Commander’s mouth twists. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll check all the packages myself and have a report back to you in three hours.”

Mertens lets out a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Central. I’m not used to… having food, actually. Can you write down the expiration dates as well?”

“It will all be sorted by expiration date and content,” Bradford promises. “Leave it to me. I’ll study the maps and see if there’s another checkpoint we can hit.” He pauses. “If you don’t mind asking, what did you eat?”

“Man tastes like pork. Or so I’ve heard, ADVENT sure loves spitroasting us,” the Commander says, and leaves to go sort out the forming queue.

Bradford swallows. _Is it too much to hope that was a tasteless joke?_

Lily looks at him, eyes filled with ghosts, and shakes her head.

_Fuck._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did warn that this would be updated infrequently, but I wasn't quite expecting almost an entire year to pass. The world without organizers and planners is a grim-dark one.


End file.
